• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 10, 2007

Lawsuits stemming from a clip of Uri Geller on YouTube apparently crossed in the mail this week.

On Tuesday, civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation sued Geller, claiming that he had misused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by demanding that YouTube remove a clip critical of the "paranormalist." But it turns out that Geller actually beat the EFF to the courthouse door by filing a suit on Monday against Brian Sapient, the YouTube user who posted the clip.

The video uploaded by Sapient contained a brief portion of a video (about three seconds, according to the EFF) that Geller allegedly owned the copyright to. The EFF argued that Sapient's inclusion of the Geller-owned snippet constitutes "a classic fair use of the material for criticism purposes" and asked the court for an injunction and damages against Geller.

Yesterday afternoon, after news stories appeared about the EFF's suit, a lawyer representing Geller sent out a press release of his own touting Geller's lawsuit against Sapient.

In that case, filed in federal district court in Philadelphia, Geller's company, "Explorologist," charges that the video violates its copyright under the United Kingdom statute, The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

The EFF hadn't been served with Geller's lawsuit on Tuesday, when it filed its own complaint.

The press release sent out by Geller's lawyer also argues that the portion of the clip owned by Geller was 10 seconds, not three -- a discrepancy that the EFF says is irrelevant. "[A]nyone watching the video (which is close to 14 minutes long) will see that whether it is three seconds or ten, the absurdity of claiming infringement for the use of such a small clip belies Geller's claim that this is about copyright ownership. This is about censorship, pure and simple," EFF lawyer Jason Schultz says.